My apology for cynical comments about Fantasy

I'll look into Clarke. When the book hit it big a few years ago, I shied away from it on general principle. Hype nearly always has the opposite effect on me. The length issue doesn't bother me. The reward at the end does: was it worth reading? That's the same issue I have with Rothfuss. He's a great writer and loads of snarky fun on a convention panel, but I probably won't read his second book until I can read the third as well.

Silver-Midnight, what I meant was not that PR folks should be reading Anne Rice or Dracula, but that they should at least make some ventures into the mainstream sf&f classic catalog. Heck, even just read some sf&f published in the last 20 years. If they don't know the old tropes, they can't twist 'em into new and wonderful shapes. I can only take so many urban werewolves and vampires (and I love werewolves and vampires!)

There are brilliant, fearless writers in UF and PR. I'm dazzled every time I read one, and they have my loyalty forever. But I've noticed a form of segregation from those genres' editors and agents over the last few years. Some, whose names I will not use here, have even outright *said* it to me: "Our readers don't want really complex worldbuilding and characters, so we're not looking for it."

I bought her collection of short stories. They're a bit variable, but I was glad I got it. So she definitely can write at shorter lengths. Must be nice though to be able to get your doorstop published *looks wistfully at novel that keeps getting loooooonger*.

Alas, so much of the newer stuff I've attempted to read in recent years is obvious, slightly veiled, rehashes of Tolkien, that I get dismayed even looking at stuff in the bookstore anymore.

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As others have said...you are reading these kinds of books because you are seeking them out, so...not sure what the complaint is.

Fantasy's quite broad. Personally, I don't often read what I think people are describing as "normal" or "traditional" fantasy (epic fantasy, high fantasy, is I'm guessing what you/they mean)--not because I don't like it or think it's "bad" somehow, but because I gravitate more towards other things. As a result, I haven't really read anything like what you've described in a long time, because I've sought out these other things. Yet most of what I read is "fantasy" in the sense that it ain't real. If I defined the entire fantasy genre based on what I read, that definition of fantasy would not include Tolkien. Which is absurd, obviously.

Jasper Fforde, Christopher Moore, and Walter Moers are some of my favorites. Moers' books are epics, I would think, but most of his characters are not human, and when I say not human I don't mean elves. I mean anthropomorphized dinosaurs, dogs, cats, bears, etc. (Or more accurately cat-like, bear-like, dog-like creatures, etc.) The books are fairly ridiculous and, I would argue, extraordinarily creative. The blurbs on the back of one of his books say stuff like "equal parts J.K. Rowling, Douglas Adams, and Shel Silverstein" and "Cross The Lord of the Rings with Yellow Submarine, throw in dashes of Monty Python, Douglas Adams, Shrek and The Princess Bride..." etcetera etcetera.

Of course, most of these favorite authors of mine endeavor to create some tongue-in-cheekiness and humor and crap like that, and that's not everyone's thing. But the stories themselves tend to be pretty original, if that's what you want.

Filigree said:

Silver-Midnight, what I meant was not that PR folks should be reading Anne Rice or Dracula, but that they should at least make some ventures into the mainstream sf&f classic catalog. Heck, even just read some sf&f published in the last 20 years. If they don't know the old tropes, they can't twist 'em into new and wonderful shapes. I can only take so many urban werewolves and vampires (and I love werewolves and vampires!)

There are brilliant, fearless writers in UF and PR. I'm dazzled every time I read one, and they have my loyalty forever. But I've noticed a form of segregation from those genres' editors and agents over the last few years. Some, whose names I will not use here, have even outright *said* it to me: "Our readers don't want really complex worldbuilding and characters, so we're not looking for it."

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Wow. That's just....wow.

Filigree said:

Silver-Midnight, what I meant was not that PR folks should be reading Anne Rice or Dracula, but that they should at least make some ventures into the mainstream sf&f classic catalog. Heck, even just read some sf&f published in the last 20 years. If they don't know the old tropes, they can't twist 'em into new and wonderful shapes. I can only take so many urban werewolves and vampires (and I love werewolves and vampires!)

There are brilliant, fearless writers in UF and PR. I'm dazzled every time I read one, and they have my loyalty forever. But I've noticed a form of segregation from those genres' editors and agents over the last few years. Some, whose names I will not use here, have even outright *said* it to me: "Our readers don't want really complex worldbuilding and characters, so we're not looking for it."

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Well it happens. I'm always tempted to start writing a new book with the idea that I will vigorously exclude anything resembling complexity or worldbuilding or characters -- but -- let's face it -- its not easy to figure out which tropes (gad even the word "trope" has morphed from what trope used to mean -- I mean a trope used to be a trope as in a figure of speech and in those far-off unenlightened days we called a standard set-up a topos as in "farm-boy is destined for greatness" -- little did we know that the -os had to go and the trope had to morph into meaning everything from now on) to adopt without any appearance of having thought about them. I think I managed it this time but it is hard to tell since I don't want to seem to have thought about it. And while I'm at it I will have to forget to hate myself (what a chore!).
Wonderful. Well, I don't know from wonderful. I have (as I've said) a hard enough time not overthinking anything you can think of. So I'm happy with having managed to not think about at least one trope/topos that I slipped in under the ever-vigilant radar of self-hatred that guards the squinty-free shores of the thinking mind imagining that it is an unthinking mind.

RichardGarfinkle said:

For recent how about Neil Gaiman?

As for Barry Hughart start with Bridge of Birds, it's the first of his three books.

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Excellent, excellent authors. You really can't go wrong with Gaiman. If you don't like one of his books, read another. None of the stuff he does is like any of the other stuff he does.

If you like Lord Dunsanay then you'd probably like Gaiman's Stardust. Note that the book has a very different tone than the movie. They are both excellent; but if you've seen the movie you can't judge the book by it. (And if you haven't seen the movie, you must immediately go do so. If only for The Scene with Robert DeNiro)

I'd add:
The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss

The Chalion books by Lois McMaster Bujold

Anything by Guy Gavriel Kay (Except the Fionivar Tapestry since you're not interested in Tolkienesque stuff)

Anything by Diana Wynne Jones Given your tastes above, Fire and Hemlock or Hexwood may be good places to start (Almost all her books are stand alone, or don't require that you've read the previous book if it is in a series. Both of those are standalone books.)

A College of Magics, A Scholar of Magics and When the King Comes Home by Caroline Stevermer (For Fantasy of Manners fans, her Sorcery and Cecelia books with Patricia Wrede are wonderful fun.)

Oh, that reminds me: for obscure epic fantasy, look at Diane Duane's 'Tales of the Five' novels, long out of print but you can find them on her site.

http://www.dianeduane.com

'The Door into Fire', 'The Door into Shadow', and 'The Door into Sunset'
remain some of my favorite books for tone, worldbuilding, and a great take on using dragons in fantasy. Plus, the books were my first positive reading experience of a m/m relationship in commercially-published fantasy.

If we're lucky, she'll get to finish and self-pub the final two books in the series, in between the scads of YA projects she's doing.

I thought there was only supposed to be one more? 'The Door into Starlight'. Could be wrong, of course.

And yes, those books are well worth reading. And an epic fantasy in 1979 in which all sexual orientations are considered normal and unremarkable, polyamorous relationships are commonplace, and where the first book's hero's primary relationship is with another man -- as you say, a wonderful positive thing.

The hero's also a father instead of a kid himself, which is also a nice change.

Fortunately, even though the series was cut short, it still does end reasonably well after the third book -- it's not obviously missing an ending.

I can't say I've even read a Tolkien rehash in about 20 years. Sorry B , but I think you are missing the boAt.

What have you been reading that has you apologizing?

I've read some crud, and bounced off of books that are widely loved By SFF readers. I'd never make sweeping statements though

Like someone else said, 99% of stuff is crap. Then of the stuff that is published, even 99% of that is crap too. And the stuff you like? Mostly crap in someone's mind.

Morven, Diane says 'Starlight' is still on the back burner, just buried under other projects.